The official weather station at the ‘pole of cold’ registered minus 59°C, but locals said their readings were as low as minus 67°C – less than 1°C off the lowest accepted temperature for a permanent settlement anywhere in the world, recorded in the same village in 1933.

None of this stopped a group of resilient Chinese visiting Oymyakon from peeling down to their underwear in the blistering conditions and taking a splash in a mysterious pool fed by a spring that never freezes in the village.

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They won admiration from local journalist Elena Pototskaya who wrote: ‘Today at the Pole of Cold in Oymyakon – in a 65-degree frost – Chinese tourists swim in the ice-free spring Yeyemu.

Officials say it is -59°C but other people’s thermometers give a different story (Picture: Siberian Times)

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(Picture: Siberian Times)

Even this woolly mammoth would feel the cold if it were real (Picture: Siberian Times)

A very cold-looking bridge (Picture: Siberian Times)

The area is home to the lowest ever recorded temperature on earth – -67.7°C (Picture: Siberian Times)

‘This does not freeze even in severe frosts in Oymyakon. Horror – us locals are afraid to go out in such a cold. And here … the tourists are swimming …’

Meanwhile, a girl demonstrated the natural mascara that forms in extreme cold.